syria syrian military retakes airport road information ministry

Syria says it has secured the road leading to Damascus International Airport, hours after heavy clashes between militants and government forces in the area led to the closure of the road.

“The road to Damascus International Airport is safe after attacks by armed terrorist groups on passing cars and the intervention of security forces,” state television quoted the Syrian Information Ministry as saying on Thursday.

The fighting in the area wounded two Austrian soldiers from a United Nations peacekeeping force earlier in the day, the Austrian Defense Ministry said in a statement. One soldier was shot in the arm and the other in the shoulder. Neither soldier is in critical condition.

The soldiers were part of a UN force deployed in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Syria has been the scene of unrest since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of security forces, have lost their lives in the turmoil.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the militants in Syria had acquired “as many as 40 shoulder-fired missile systems in recent weeks,” and “at least some” of the weaponry had been provided by Qatar.

On Wednesday, The New York Times said the US administration “is considering deeper intervention to help push [Syrian] President Bashar al-Assad from power.”

On November 26, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Paris had allocated 1.5 million dollars in emergency aid to the newly-formed Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Coalition.